Expo Row

Clerkenwell-based architects Wilkinson Eyre have fallen out with Italy over allegations of plagiarism.

The EC1 firm has claimed that the Tree of Life (pictured), the symbol of Italy's Expo 2015 in Milan, bears a striking resemblance to the "super-trees" they created as the centre-piece of Singapore's Gardens by the Bay development. "You'd have expected them to have come up with something a bit more original," Chris Wilkinson told The Daily Telegraph. Marco Balich, the Italian designer of the 100ft-tall Tree of Life, denied he had borrowed the idea. "You can't have copyright over the shape of a tree," he said. Expo 2015 runs in Milan from 1 May to 31 October.www.expo2015.org

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